


The Door Into A Nightmare

by jasonptodd



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Dystopia, M/M, alternate universe: 1984, this is basically a mashup of all dystopian novels ive ever read
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-01-24 15:35:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1610282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jasonptodd/pseuds/jasonptodd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This world isn't made for love. This world is made for hate, and fight, and hopelessness. So don't try to make it into something else.</p><p>(What if it was another world, though.)</p><p>--</p><p>In a country that is led by despair and demagogy, there is not much two simple boys can rely on but each other. So what is there to do when one gets taken away?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> now beta'd by the perfect Helena (mylittlemindpalace on Tumblr) to whom I am ever grateful and immensely in debt. She's awesome. Like, really.

Steve shouldn't be surprised. Really. Most of his childhood friends are gone by now, it's a wonder they even kept Bucky home so long, and besides isn't this the great adventure they've always been talking about?

 

He recalls hearing of The War for the first time when he was six, and his mother cried at the kitchen table while his father told her this was the only possible solution to the Southern Mexico Dilemma. With capital letters, Steve remembers, always printed on the first page of the newspaper, back when there still were newspapers: _Southern Mexico presents trouble spot_ , _Brazil intervention fails to bring Southern Mexico Dilemma closer to a solution_ , _Southern Mexico Dilemma poses international threat_ , _Humanitary Intervention Begins In Mexico_ , _Two Hundred Military Advisors Shipped to Monterrey_ and after a while the headlines got shorter, the articles got sharper and then, one day: _Declaration of War on Mexico – USA enter conflict smoldering for decades_ , and then the posters came up, _Bring Peace to Your Home_ , and the spots were always on TV, with the men and women holding up banners saying _I help because I care_ , and then:

 

_Rogers, Joseph._

_To report for duty 7/20/53._

 

He and Bucky were waving for hours after their fathers had left, and then Bucky had turned around and grinned excitedly as always and said, man, I can't wait till we're over there!

 

It's strange how that was ten years ago. But then again, remembering is a strange thing altogether, and it's become hard to keep track of the time that passes, after they closed the archives and museums down and the print medium laws got introduced.

 

“When?”, is all he can ask Bucky who's sitting on the table in Steve's flat and looks out of the window, to the huge grey building on the other side of the street, that has been left back like all the others – Steve thinks it used to be the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but he isn't sure – and hasn't said a word in ten minutes.

 

“Tomorrow morning,” Bucky answers, quietly and Steve doesn't understand how Bucky is so calm, when all he wants to do is get up from his bed and scream, scream, scream at him, we were supposed to go over there together, this was supposed to be about us, this is not alright, don't try to make it alright.

 

“So – last night, then?”, he mumbles instead and Bucky nods while getting up from the table, and kneels down in front of Steve, and this is like always, and like never, and then he kisses Steve, and Steve pulls him closer as if that could change anything about the fact that he will lose Bucky, Bucky, Bucky, whose name never leaves his tongue and his thoughts, and then Bucky pushes him forward on the bed and Steve thinks absently they only have half an hour left until the warden will check the house, but then Bucky opens his lips and Steve tilts his head a bit and bites Bucky's lower lip softly and Bucky gasps, so quietly Steve hardly hears it, and then Bucky starts unbuttoning Steve's shirt and Steve lets it fall on the bed and every movement is painfully slow, as if they could savour the moment somehow, and after a while Bucky pulls away and breathes heavily and puts his forehead against Steve's.

 

Steve wants to say something, _anything_.

 

Bucky silences his mute mouth and bends his lips down softly, so softly and nothing about this is the Bucky he knows, the Bucky who never thinks twice about anything and kisses him senseless and never loses a word about it and has no regrets and doesn't take anything seriously. His lips just touch Steve's so lightly and it feels like Bucky wants to print himself on Steve's lips, breathe a word that is so fleeting he is scared he won't catch it in time.

(He realizes: This is the first time Bucky says goodbye.)

 

Bucky pulls away and loosens his arms that have held Steve in a grip that made it hard to breathe. (He only feels that now.)

 

When the warden comes in, Steve tries to hold still, but his hands are trembling and Bucky stands behind him, not saying anything the entire time.

 

“Wish you a nice evening,” the warden says and Steve nods. “Thanks sir, same to you,” he replies and smiles.

 

He turns around and Bucky looks up from the ground.

 

“I need to go,” Bucky says sharply, and it feels so distant (but Steve knows the game, they've played it too often, since they were sixteen, lying on Bucky's bed and breathless from laughing and more and Bucky had said “ever thought about marrying some girl and moving outside the city, Rogers?”, and Steve had shrugged and said, “dunno, first I'd have to find a girl,” and Bucky had grinned and said, “still nobody?”, and Steve had turned to face him and Bucky had continued, “it isn't hard, you just have to go for it, just kiss her and afterwards you can still decide if she's worth it, but how should anyone ever know you fancy 'em when you never _say_ a –”, and Steve had gone for it like Bucky had told him and the look of horror on Bucky's face did not at all match his arms gripping Steve's back tight and him pulling Steve back, smashing their lips together in a helpless attempt to justify it, and then they'd lost themselves in a swirl of _yes_ es and _please_ s and _what-if_ s come to life, and afterwards:

 

_I think it would be better for you to go._

_(Sharpness piercing my veins.)_

_Steve, please._

_(Coldness freezing my arteries.)_

 

Steve knows the game, and sometimes he wishes they could have been somewhere, sometime else. Because maybe, just maybe then there could have been a _SteveandBucky_ , a connection between the two of them;

All he knows is this: Steve. Bucky. And something neither of them can put a finger on. And he takes it, because it is more than nothing, but it is not anything either.)

 

“Sure,” Steve says, and there is nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing but: goodbye, without capital letters, even though he wants it to be a

 

_** Good Bye ** _

 

...the next day Steve spends at work, putting together the same two metal items over and over again, and for the first time he wonders what kind of gun they make up once finished.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry i felt it would fit better if i split the beginning in two (very short) chapters
> 
> i don't know how far steve's memory is going to go so this is probably going to be edited a lot; i'm sorry i'm very uncoordinated

“Where can I sign up for the War?”

 

“I'm sorry?”

 

“This is the Ministry of International Interventions, right?”

 

“Correct.”

 

“Then the War is your business.”

 

“Correct.”

 

“I want to sign up. For the War.”

 

“Sorry, could you repeat that?”

 

“I want to sign up for the War, I want to be a soldier.”

 

“You can't sign up for the War.”

 

“But I thought – but they used to sign up, back when –”

 

“Sorry? Back –”

 

“No – no, I must have mixed something up, sorry.”

 

Steve hangs up and tries to breathe very slowly. He knows that was close. He knows he'll have a whole lot to explain to the warden tonight.

 

And there's something nagging at the back of his mind, and he takes a deep breath and lets it through.

 

_Something is terribly wrong._

 

And he tries to put it together, but he will fail, will have to, because his memory is full of holes and all of it is from before the War, when he was young, but this is what he remembers:

 

_One._

 

I am proud, and thankful that I have been elected by this nation to represent it, to defend it. This is our goal: Work towards peace, wherever possible, whenever possible. Work towards diplomacy. Work towards communication.

Thank you for your votes.

 

“What an idiot,” Steve's father mumbles while he swallows his soup.

 

“Don't say that,” his mother replies who's still watching the TV screen.

 

“His party slogan is _march forward, not backwards_ , what do you really expect from that guy? People vote for him like mad, because they're confused, but that's the only reason. They want someone who keeps them safe from the war, as if anyone could do that.”

 

“I don't think so,” Steve's mother murmurs, “I think he's the only one who at least says what he plans for Mexico.”

 

“Does that make it any better?”, his father says loudly, and Steve is almost a little scared of him, now that he gets up. “This country has fought too many wars –”

 

“They had to be fought by someone,” his mother shouts back and finally turns her glance from the screen.

“I still don't think he has any right to get tens of thousands of civilians killed just because they live by the border,” his father shouts now.

 

Steve starts to cry. His mother rushes and hugs him. She says something, but it's blurred and faint and the memory dissolves.

 

_Two_

 

This museum is closed due to the Government Shutdown. Thank you for your notion.

 

“When will it open again?”, Steve asks his dad, and he can hardly hold back his tears, because this was supposed to be _their_ day and now it's all gone wrong.

 

“I don't know”, his father says sadly (why? why are you sad?) and turns around. “Tell you what, Steve, we'll just sit by the river and count the boats going by, and you can have some ice cream, now that sounds like a plan, ol' man, doesn't it?” And he grins and Steve laughs when his dad lifts him up and carries him down to the river.

 

_Three_

 

“We got new neighbours,” Joe, who lives in the flat below Steve, announces one afternoon when they're playing yo-yo in the backyard because the new laws don't allow children on the streets on their own anymore.

“Who are they?”, Steve asks.

“Dunno,” Joe shrugs, “moved here from Texas anyways, I think.”

“Texas?”, Steve mumbles, because it's strange: he is not sure anyone has moved here from anywhere else in the past year, he's only seen people move away: First Charlotte and Dennis from school, then Mr Brownes from the flat above them and when Steve looks at the houses surrounding them, he realizes their windows are cracked and probably none of them have been visited in twelve months.

“'pparently,” Joe answers and wants to say something else, but the warden coming into the backyard cuts him off. “Get back in the house,” he shouts.

Steve is used to the wardens being loud and obnoxious, but sometimes they're so harsh he wants to ask them to stop. (But he won't because he has promised to his father not to say anything to the warden, to be careful, to be quiet and polite as ever, and most of all not to mention the radio his parents hide under the counter in the kitchen and switch on every night after he has gone to bed.) “Yessir,” Joe salutes the warden and Steve follows the gesture, mumbling a “yessir” in the process.

 

He meets the new boy a few days afterwards, when his dad gives him his monthly pocket money, ten dollars, mumbling “they won't be worth a dime in a few months' time anyways, so you better spend 'em now” and Steve heads off to the ice cream parlor, but vanilla ice cream is out of stock (as it has been since his birthday, he thinks bitterly as he walks down the street with the money in his hands and no idea where to go next). He's so lost in thought he doesn't even notice the boy lurking in the back alley he walks past, shooting out and pulling him back in in a split second. The boy holds a knife to his neck and Steve thinks for a moment he's part of the gangs that have been roaming the streets for a few months before the boy's hot breath tickles his ear and he hears him murmur “I saw the money in your hands, now give it to me and don't start screaming or I'll cut you up,” and his voice is shaking and Steve realizes he can't be older than nine, ten years at most. But the boy is tall for his age, and Steve has been eating cabbage for the past week and he's hungry and tired and sickly and small.

 

“Please don't hurt me,” he rasps because it's the only thing he can think of.

 

The other boy's hands are shaking wildly now and Steve is scared he _will_ actually cut his throat accidentally if he goes on like that, so he overturns the boy's arm in a quick movement and slips through, standing freely in front of him.

 

Finally he has time to inspect the boy, now backing away while running a hand through his brown hair, dirtying it even more with the mud and sweat sticking on his hand, fear marking his bright blue eyes.

 

Steve puts up a hand and the boy flinches, ready to punch him any second, as Steve realizes. “Sorry,” he says quietly, “just – here –” and he hands the boy the ten dollars.

 

The other boy takes them but stares at the bills as if he couldn't comprehend what was going on. Then he looks up.

 

“You – you could have run away,” he says slowly.

Steve shrugs. “Guess so,” he replies and looks at his worn out shoes, and he can't quite explain to himself why he didn't.

“I'm Steve,” he breaks the awkward silence and smiles at the boy, stretching out his hand once again.

“James Buchanan Barnes,” the boy answers as slowly as before, judging from his frown still debating whether to take Steve's hand or not. In the end he shakes it fiercely and pulls it away after only a few seconds. “But my friends call me Bucky,” he adds, apparently expecting Steve to do so.


	3. Chapter 3

_Four_

 

The school is closed down the summer before Steve and Bucky would attend tenth grade. For a while Steve's parents try finding another school for him, but it's useless. The whole borough of Brooklyn has two open schools left, and they're both private and haven't accepted any new students in five years. Then, they search for someone who can teach Steve at home. They finally meet Mrs Grayson who was dismissed from her job because her mother was a Latino, which, as Steve understands, makes her a Latino, which in turn makes it illegal for her to be a teacher, or a nurse, or an official. She's nice, though, quite young, maybe in her mid-twenties, and she's smart. Steve likes her. Even more so after she tells him she has come to New York City from her former home in Abilene, Texas, when the Texan laws made it impossible for her to live in her flat.

“I would have had to find a flat smaller than two hundred square feet,” she laughs during dinner with his parents that they invite her to after she has been studying English and Geography with Steve. She takes another bite of her baked potato and continues, “now, that would have been fine if I'd been alone, but with my husband and son? Forget it!”

“Probably for the better you came here,” Steve's mother throws in, “considering the state of affairs in Texas.”

Mrs Grayson does not reply and when Steve looks up, he notices her lower lip is shaking.

He stands up abruptly. “I'm done,” he says, “can I go to my room?”

His father nods.

Later that evening, after the warden has checked their flat, his parents switch on the hidden radio again. Steve lies awake, trying to catch a few words, but the sound is too muffled. After a while he falls asleep, and his dreams are confused, the president appears in them and Bucky who tells him not to worry, he will defend the country in honour and bravery and he runs after Bucky, trying to stop him.

 

_Five_

 

After Steve and Bucky's dads are gone, they spend almost every day together. Mrs Grayson has been forced to move into a Latino home and their moms are busy working, from six thirty to nine in the evening. So it's Steve and Bucky most of the time.

They sometimes take walks or meet up with other boys, but the wardens shoo them into the house every time, and after a while they give up.

They talk a lot about life after the war, when they'll be able to move out of the city and marry a nice girl. What they don't talk about is that the few newspapers that are left only ever print headlines with growing numbers of fatalities, air strikes, refugees, Latino homes and troops. What they also don't talk about is Bucky's hand on Steve's shoulder when he pushes Steve on his bed and strips off his own shirt, and Steve pulling himself up on his elbows and dragging Bucky down, pressing his lips on Bucky's and opening his mouth.

But in fairness, Steve thinks, not talking about it is probably the only thing that is right, because discussing the state of affairs has never done anyone any good. He fears that this – they, together – don't make sense at all once they start talking about it; and that what he is sure is the last sane thing in his life is in fact wrong.

He can't bear that Bucky might think the same thing, so he drags him even closer, scratching his fingernails across Bucky's back, never demanding, always giving, and he forgets about everything that is not Bucky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a billion ideas for this universe but I can't put a single one of them into words I AM SORRY. have this though, and I will do my best to continue posting throughout fall; you are officially allowed to hate me if I don't.  
> Thank you for reading!!!!


End file.
